The Army’s long search for a small tank that packs a big punch seems to never end. Now, General Dynamics is looking to do something about that with their new Griffin tank technology demonstrator. Unveiled at this year’s Association of the United States Army (AUSA) convention in Washington DC, this little tank is meant to be a jumping off point for finally fulfilling the Army’s mobile protected firepower requirement. The 27 ton Griffin is a franken-tank of sorts, which is not a bad thing. It uses pieces of existing technology to lower costs and development time–and also return some investment...

A New York Times newspaper article describes a beleaguered American fighter program enduring delays, escalating costs, and technical problems. Another article about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter no doubt, right? Nope. It's an article from 1977 about the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The F-16 was the original multinational fighter. Developed by the United States with Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway as partners, the fighter was designed to be an agile, lightweight, daytime fighter to replace aging fighters such as the F-5 Freedom Fighter and the F-104 Starfighter. At $6,091,000 per unit—$27.1 million when adjusted for inflation—it was also supposed to...

Barry Matsumori, formerly the senior vice president of sales and business development at SpaceX, has joined Virgin Galactic's satellite launch team. With Virgin Galactic, Matsumori holds the title of senior vice president of business development and advanced concepts for LauncherOne, the company's small satellite launch vehicle. Prior to SpaceX, Matsumori held a leadership role at Qualcomm as vice president of wireless connectivity where he was responsible for the development of mobile telecom module products as well as satellite communication infrastructure and terminals. He has held positions at Space Systems Loral (SSL) and General Dynamics, and has experience with early-stage technology...

Between fear of Russia, urgency from the Army, and lobbying from General Dynamics, funding to upgun the Army’s GD-built Stryker armored vehicle has grown 350 percent in three weeks. In mid-May, the House approved a $79.5 million addition to the administration’s budget request. Yesterday, the Senate, not to be outdone, voted $371 million — four and a half times more. The House Appropriations Committee has actually approved $411 million on Tuesday, but that hasn’t passed the full chamber yet. Why does Stryker have such momentum? Some of our sources cynically pointed to General Dynamics’ lobbying operation, which is one of...

Health Overhaul: Jonathan Gruber isn't the only one who got rich off ObamaCare. Several big government contractors are raking in megabucks to help the government take over the nation's health care system. Gruber made news when it came to light that the Obama administration had paid the stupid-American-calling MIT economist roughly $400,000 to help build ObamaCare, and several states paid him big bucks as well to build their exchanges. But this is just the tip of the ObamaCare bonanza. In the last fiscal year, Health and Human Services spent $21 billion on contracts with private firms. That's more than it...

A defense contractor and top campaign contributor to House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) is in the running to get a contract to print millions of IDs and other government documents associated with the president’s planned executive amnesty, Breitbart News has learned exclusively. The contractor, General Dynamics, is on the list of “interested vendors” for a draft solicitation that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), sent out to vendors in October. If the president goes through with an executive amnesty for millions of illegal aliens and General Dynamics gets...

UCK! A smokin’ hot F-16CM from the Air Force’s Viper East demonstration team has you in its sights. The jet performed at a 2011 Florida airshow. (SURESH A. ATAPATTU) The Viper was small, fast, and in your face. his is the story of two brothers, who happen to be airplanes. The older brother, the F-15 Eagle, entered the world fully formed, and his doting parents—the U.S. Air Force—nurtured him and quickly forgave minor transgressions. The younger brother, the F-16, was born prematurely, with no name, and scrambled to catch up. At a rollout ceremony on December 13, 1973, in Fort...

On the list of Pentagon weapons programs gone awry, the Navy's A-12 Avenger attack jet stands out. The radar-evading, carrier-based McDonnell Douglas plane was 18 months behind schedule and about $1.4 billion over cost when then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney canceled the $57 billion program back in 1991. The case over the triangular-shaped A-12 Avenger, which was dubbed the "Flying Dorito," has been in legal limbo ever since, going all the way to the Supreme Court in 2011 before being referred back to a lower court. Now, after 22 years, a settlement is on the horizon. Senator Susan Collins told the...

General Dynamics to beat out Germany for Saudi tank deal-report (Reuters) - U.S. defence firm General Dynamics is in talks to deliver battle tanks to Saudi Arabia, beating out German rival Krauss-Maffei Wegmann for the lucrative deal, a German newspaper reported. Handelsblatt daily cited industry sources as saying on Friday that a deal for Saudi Arabia to buy M1 Abrams tanks from General Dynamics was already in sight. General Dynamics and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann were not immediately available for comment. There has been speculation for months that Saudi Arabia could order more than 200 Leopard 2 tanks from Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, though...

General Dynamics Information Technology has received a federal contract to provide customer support services for the federal Affordable Care Act that will add about 120 jobs at the company’s Coralville call center. Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, joined company representatives Monday to announce the contract from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The contract also will add “several thousand” jobs at General Dynamics Information Technology call centers in other states, according to an aide to Loebsack. Mark Meudt, vice president of General Dynamics Information Technology, said the Coralville call center at 2450 Oakdale Blvd. employs about 600. He said...

SNIP Hagel, however, has friends in Democratic lobbying circles. The powerful Washington D.C. organization known as the Podesta Group is reportedly asking defense contractors for financial support to run ads defending the Hagel nomination. Fox News White House Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry reported on Friday: (2:15 in) "Sources confirm to Fox [that] Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta has been hired by a firm known as the Bipartisan Group to help mobilize support for Hagel. And defense contractors received calls this week urging them to be ready for a Hagel pick as soon as Monday, and asking them for...

The manufacturer of the eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles that make up the backbone of the Army’s fleet at Joint Base Lewis-McChord is unveiling new models of at a conference this week, including ones that would have run counter to their initial purpose as a rapidly deployable medium weight infantry carrier. General Dynamics is pitching the new models as a path for the Army to improve its vehicle fleet without spending billions of dollars designing new options. One of the new models is a tracked Stryker that weighs some 42 tons – 22 tons more than an off-the-floor, basic Stryker infantry carrier.*...

General Dynamics Proposes Piranha 5 for the Close Combat Vehicle Program (Source: General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada; issued August 29, 2011) LONDON, Ontario --- General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada announced today that it will offer the PIRANHA 5 vehicle fitted with Rheinmetall's LANCE 30mm Modular Turret System for the Government of Canada's Close Combat Vehicle (CCV) Program. The goal of the CCV program is to deliver a well-protected armoured vehicle with very high tactical mobility, able to deliver an infantry section in close combat, while operating in intimate support of main battle tanks. In response, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada is leading an...

The U.S. Navy has discovered "aggressive" corrosion in Austal Ltd.'s first new combat ship designed for operating close to shore. The corrosion is in the propulsion areas of the USS Independence, the Littoral Combat Ship built by the Mobile, Alabama-based subsidiary of Australia's Austal and General Dynamics Corp. "This could be a very serious setback," said Norman Polmar, an independent naval analyst and author in Alexandria, Virginia. "If the ship develops a serious flaw, you're not going to continue producing them." Permanent repair will require drydocking the ship and removing its "water jets,". Aluminum-hulled ships such as Austal's tend to...

The last of the 14 Lewis and Clark-class cargo ships that General Dynamics NASSCO is building in San Diego will be named after Cesar Chavez, the late civil rights and labor leader. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will visit NASSCO on Tuesday afternoon to make the formal announcement. Some members of the Chavez family are expected to be in attendance, says NASSCO, which recently laid the keel of the ship. "We suggested the name Cesar Chavez for the ship because we're in Barrio Logan and want to be good neighbors, and we want to show respect for our workers,"...

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- The Navy is considering naming a cargo ship that's being built after farmworker activist Cesar Chavez. James Gill, a spokesman for General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, said Monday the company suggested the name to honor its mostly Hispanic work force and the mostly Hispanic neighborhood, Barrio Logan, where the boat builder is located.

Pentagon Reports Billions of Dollars in Contractor Fraud The Pentagon paid hundreds of billions of dollars to defense contractors engaged in criminal or civil fraud -- in some cases paying the companies after they were convicted, according to a new Defense Department report. At least 91 contractors holding contracts worth $270 billion were the subjects of civil fraud judgments -- and in some cases CRIMINAL FRAUD convictions as well, many of which resulted in fines, suspensions or debarments. Even so, Defense Department contracting officers still assigned $4.9 billion worth of work with these companies after the fraud was uncovered, the...

Should the government be allowed to declare a contractor in default and then invoke a secrecy privilege to withhold information the contractor says it needs to dispute that finding in court? Two decades after the Pentagon canceled the Navy’s A-12 Avenger II stealth aircraft, the fight over who is at fault for the program’s delays and cost overruns has brought that question before the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, justices on the court sharply questioned lawyers on both sides of the dispute. The court’s ruling, which is expected before the 2010-11 term ends in June, could have broad implications for...

Spain and Saudi Arabia negotiate 3 billion euro arms deal Interest in the tanks date back to a visit by King Juan Carlos to Jeddah in 2008, since when there have been regular contacts between the Spanish manufacturers and the Saudi Defence ministry. Spain and Saudi Arabia negotiate 3 billion euro arms deal Spain is negotiating with Saudi Arabia what could become its biggest ever arms deal, the daily El Pais said Monday Spain is trying to conclude a 3 billion euro ($4.17 billion) arms deal with Saudi Arabia for American defense group General Dynamics Corp's Spanish affiliate, El Pais...

General Dynamics to develop Namer APC for IDF By YAAKOV KATZ 10/24/2010 01:36 Move will increase the survivability of Israeli military forces; Israel in negotiations with several countries over Merkava sale Production will begin soon in the US of the IDF’s new Namer (leopard in Hebrew, pronounced nah-mer) armored personnel carrier (APC) after the Defense Ministry awarded General Dynamics a massive tender to develop the vehicle. The move is poised to increase the survivability of Israeli military forces, At the cutting edge of APC technology and claimed to be one-of-its-kind in the world by officers in the Ground Forces Command,...